A few firms vertically dominate every layer of the data extraction pipeline

Evidence

The monopoly-monopsony hybrids we are describing represent massive concentrations of power. These companies currently exercise a hold over the infrastructure that makes social quantification possible; they control everything from undersea cables to satellites to the “last mile” architecture that delivers internet service to individuals. They also control the environments or platforms in which data is being generated, the design and production of the devices through which data is collected, and the computing capacity necessary to analyze the data, including through increasingly sophisticated machine learning methods that do not require explicit human intervention. Finally, they also control the content. — Nick Couldry & Ulises A. Mejias, The Costs of Connection, 176

Categorization

• ADDENDUM: Relevant to the ‘Grafting & Growth’ tree-infrastructure framing in reverse: firms as the single choke point over an entire extraction infrastructure, paralleling the essay’s point about single-node infrastructure control.
• XREF: Connects to Zuboff’s surveillance capitalism vertical integration argument and to ‘The Code’ / attention-economy school claims about platform gatekeeping. — connects to: Sharing-economy platforms fuse data extraction with labor at unprecedented scale; Renting cloud infrastructure yields data extraction alongside rental income — Nick Srnicek, Platform Capitalism, 60; The Big Five carve up the data economy under informal noncompetition that blocks rivals (+3 more)

Broader Connections

• Renting cloud infrastructure yields data extraction alongside rental income #exemplifies (0.78) — Nick Srnicek, Platform Capitalism, 60